Chris Evans shined at the right time for the Kent State Golden Flashes (Speaking of Sports)

By JIM INGRAHAM

Thursday, March 14, 2013

You can get to the tournament as a team, but you win the tournament with stars.

There comes a time for every team on every tournament trail when the game is just sitting there for the taking, waiting to be won. That's when you need your star to be a star.

Kent State reached that point late in its game with Buffalo in the Mid-American Conference tournament third-round game at Quicken Loans Arena Thursday night.

The game was waiting to be won, so Chris Evans went out and won it.

"My teammates have a lot of confidence in me," he said. "They look for me to make plays at the end of games."

At the end of Thursday's game Evans kept making play after play until the game was won, a 70-68 Kent victory that sends the Golden Flashes into the semifinals Friday night against backyard neighbor Akron.

That's right, another Akron-Kent MAC Tournament matchup. Do they ever NOT play each other in the annual March MACfest?

Fortunately for Kent, Kent has Evans, who is a load for any opponent to handle. Just ask Buffalo coach Reggie Witherspoon.

"He has the size of a post player but the dexterity of a perimeter player," Witherspoon said. "But more than anything, it's his heart, and he really displayed it tonight."

Kent's 6-8 senior forward scored 25 points and pulled down 15 rebounds, many of them during winning time at the end of the game.

Over the last 5 minutes and 39 seconds of the game Evans scored 10 of Kent's last 14 points. There were layups, free throws, and jump shots as Evans pretty much went where he wanted to go and did what he wanted to do.

It was winning time. Evans is a star -- a first team All-MAC selection -- and so he did what he does. He scored points, he grabbed rebounds, and he made sure his team won.

"What sticks in my mind," said Witherspoon, as he looked back at winning time, "is Evans. He was going one-on-one at the end of the game, and that was the difference."

Some of it was one-on-one, some of it was on passes from his teammates. But wherever, whenever, and however he got the ball, Evans knew what to do with it. It was a crunch time clinic on sheer one-on-one, I'm-better-that-you artistry.

"Chris has been coming through for us at the end of games like that all season," said Kent point guard Randal Holt.

Evans is a matchup nightmare. He is quicker than the big players who try to guard him and he's bigger than the smaller guards who try to guard him.

Evans also has that certain something that allows him to be at his best when the stakes are the highest -- at the end of games. He had a rather pedestrian first half Thursday: 6 points and 6 rebounds.

"I think in the first half our team showed a ton of jitters," said Senderoff, whose team, as a No. 4 seed, earned a bye into the third round.

However, the Flashes looked more rusted than rested in that first half. Kent shot just 42 percent from the field and 14 percent (1-for-7) on three-point attempts in the first half, and were trailing Buffalo 32-30 at the intermission.

Everything picked up after that -- especially Evans. The flashiest of Flashes went off for 19 points and 11 rebounds in the second half.

"My mindset in the second half was to attack the lane," he said.

Buffalo countered with a star of its own in 6-7 Javon McCrea, the human bicep.

"He's a monster," Senderoff said. "He's almost impossible to guard. You've just got to hope he misses his shots."

McCrea didn't miss many. He was 4-for-5 from the field and 3-for-3 from the foul line in the first half, and he finished with 20 points overall, but just four rebounds.

In the battle of the All-MAC first teamers, Evans out-played McCrea, especially down the stretch.

"He plays the "three" (small forward), and he had 15 rebounds," shrugged Witherspoon.

No other Kent player had more than four rebounds. Evans had 15 rebounds and the rest of his team had 23.

For most of the night it wasn't a pretty game. The teams played hard and fast, but also at times sloppy and out-of-control.

Coming down the stretch it became clear that it was star time. The team that was going to win was the team whose star took over the game.

That turned out to be Evans -- and now he and Kent are no longer Buffalo's problem, but Akron's.